Search form

Demographic trends

In this blog post published by IRIN, editor Obi Anyadike draws attention to the many challenges faced by African cities. three key findings: 1) African cities are crowded, “but not economically dense.” 2) African cities are disconnected. 3) African cities are costly, both for residents and businesses. The rapid urban growth is outpacing policy reforms. It is time for urgent reforms in African cities. Read on

Laurent Bossard, Director of the SWAC Secretariat, and the economist Jean-Marie Cour were invited to the programme “Eco d’ici Eco d’ailleurs” on RFI, a French public radio channel, where they discussed the issue of rural migration in Africa. They lamented the often-false perception of this phenomenon, which shows how difficult it is for observers and development actors to change the paradigm when it comes to how the continent’s transformations are analysed. Read on

Of the 566 new urban agglomerations that ‘emerged’ in the ten years between 2000 and 2010, two-thirds (375) are rural clusters. These new towns are a key feature of urban-rural linkages, driving territorial transformation processes and acting as entry points to the food system for the vast majority of the region’s family farms. Read on

Of the 1 939 urban agglomerations in the Africapolis database, 290 have a market potential - total population living within 40 km of the centre of an agglomeration - of more than 2 million people. The market potential of a region is a good measure of spatial variations in economic density and can be interpreted to determine the economic attractiveness of a region. It provides an additional illustration of urban development not captured by city size alone. Read on

Twenty-five per cent of West Africa’s nearly 2 000 urban agglomerations can be described as satellite towns. These 461 towns have a combined population of 14.4 million or 11% of the total urban population of West Africa. Nigeria is the country with the greatest number of satellite towns (367). Satellite towns are, by definition, modest in size with an average of 31 000 inhabitants. Read on

Irreversible urbanisation: Africa is the least urbanised continent in the world, but an irreversible urban transition is very much underway. In West Africa, the number of urban agglomerations increased from 152 in 1950 to almost 2 000 in 2010. Read on

More and bigger cities: Beyond the megacities, a dense network of small and medium-sized cities is growing. This is helping to shape national urban networks and to increasingly connect urban and rural populations.
Read on

The city as an accelerator of demographic transition: Urbanisation is a powerful force for lowering fertility. It promotes the education of girls and facilitates access to healthcare; it offers more employment opportunities for women; access to information and dissemination of ideas and attitudes happens faster than in rural areas; and housing is more expensive and is, therefore, less spacious. Read on